Thoughts on Star Wars Celebration Orlando 2017
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| Photo by Jeremy Hunt |
The good stuff
The best aspect of Star Wars Celebration Orlando for our family had almost nothing to do with Celebration
itself, other than event and venue being the focal point that drew the critical
mass of Star Wars fans to one place. The
fan community was far and away the high point of the entire long weekend for
our family, and I would daresay it salvaged the experience for us.
Notable highlights for us were the Skywalking Through Neverland and Fangirls Going Rogue podcast stage
events. Both were like a family reunion of sorts (without the awkward kisses
from your great aunt), and I can’t overstate how much those events meant to
us. Additionally, we took part in other
small-scale impromptu meetups around the area that were similarly wonderful.
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| Ahsoka Lives event, photo by Jeremy Hunt |
We didn’t attend the Drowning in Moonlight Gala, but have heard nothing but praise for it. The same could be said for the Galactic Nights, and certainly for the unofficial yet completely incredible Ahsoka Lives event. The takeaway is that meeting new friends and old, hanging out and enjoying the company of excellent people, is something we’ll remember fondly, and it outshines any negatives we encountered in our SWCO experience.
Next on my list of positives is the
surprising availability of items in the Celebration store, even on the later
days of the convention. This is
something that was at the top of the complaints list for SWCA, and I’m happy to
report that for the most part, they did much better this time around.
At Anaheim, the options for obtaining
calories were quite limited inside the convention center itself. In Orlando, we were very happy to see that
the food options were both varied and plentiful, and that deserves some praise.
A unexpected improvement in Orlando vs
Anaheim was the convention security personnel.
I found them to be far more friendly and helpful at SWCO. We had an unfortunate theft happen to us on
the last morning, and the security chief and his people were excellent in the
way they responded to our situation.
The...not so good stuff
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| SWCO day 1 entry line, photo by Jeremy Hunt |
Any event containing a large amount of humans
is going to have issues, and SWCO is no exception. That said, with as much experience as ReedPOP
has had with these events, I was surprised with some of the stumbles.
As many have already stated, epic-level horrible management of the entry procedure marked the first day of Celebration. We arrived at 5 AM, hoping to possibly get a wristband for the 40th Anniversary panel (more on that later), and found ourselves in a line that quite literally wrapped around the entire convention center, which OCC itself states is the second largest in the US. Our area of the line was on some road near I-4, by the woods. In this area there was no security, no portable restrooms, and no SWCO personnel to give information or assistance. The possible scenarios in which that could have gone wrong still make me cringe. To make it even more disappointing, we were using a wheelchair and had medical badges, but no one was outside that morning to tell us that we could have entered the convention center fairly near where we parked. We only found out that detail once we made it inside.
That first morning alone nearly soured us on
the entire event. For context, know that
we’re not Celebration newbies. SWCO is my fourth Celebration, and my family’s
third. Anaheim had its issues, but for
us, was a far smoother experience.
To continue the theme, I must mention the
issue with the main panels. Our family
wasn’t able to attend either of the first two main panels, and by Sat, we’d
given up and didn’t even try to get into the Rebels panel. Granted, maybe we could have made that one,
but it just wasn’t worth trying to make it happen.
We now know that SWCO had over 70k in attendance, and though we don’t know the numbers for individual days, what we do know is that this breaks the past Celebration attendance records. We also know that the Galaxy Stage (Valencia Room) holds “up to 6000”, per the OCC website. I heard all weekend that the Galaxy stage held 4000, but that might not be correct. Regardless, those numbers meant that a fairly small percentage of attendees were going to get into this room, and it turned out that the vast majority of those that did were those that camped out all night.
I get it - Celebration isn’t a small convention anymore, and along with the growing size is the realization that the experience changes. Part of that change is that families may not be able to attend main stage events going foward - that is at least how it seems to us. Our family has already discussed that at future Celebrations, we probably won’t even try. We can’t camp out overnight, and even getting up at 3 am and heading to the convention center got us nothing but exhaustion this time around.
There were other shenanigans that resulted in friends of ours camping out all night and still not making it into the 40th Anniversary panel, but that is for others explain, as we didn’t experience it firsthand.
One last anecdotal experience we faced was a late morning arrival on Saturday where we walked all the way down to E hall to check if there were any panel wristbands left, only to find a sign saying that any remaining bands would be handed out near the Galaxy stage on the top floor. This made very little sense to me logistically, and I remarked to the family at the time they could have placed this sign in the main lobby, to keep people from walking all the way down to Hall E. What’s more, after we made the trip up to top floor, we found that not only were there no remaining bands, but that no one there even knew what we were talking about. A SWCO volunteer tried to get info, but no luck. I was again surprised by this lack of organization.
We now know that SWCO had over 70k in attendance, and though we don’t know the numbers for individual days, what we do know is that this breaks the past Celebration attendance records. We also know that the Galaxy Stage (Valencia Room) holds “up to 6000”, per the OCC website. I heard all weekend that the Galaxy stage held 4000, but that might not be correct. Regardless, those numbers meant that a fairly small percentage of attendees were going to get into this room, and it turned out that the vast majority of those that did were those that camped out all night.
I get it - Celebration isn’t a small convention anymore, and along with the growing size is the realization that the experience changes. Part of that change is that families may not be able to attend main stage events going foward - that is at least how it seems to us. Our family has already discussed that at future Celebrations, we probably won’t even try. We can’t camp out overnight, and even getting up at 3 am and heading to the convention center got us nothing but exhaustion this time around.
There were other shenanigans that resulted in friends of ours camping out all night and still not making it into the 40th Anniversary panel, but that is for others explain, as we didn’t experience it firsthand.
One last anecdotal experience we faced was a late morning arrival on Saturday where we walked all the way down to E hall to check if there were any panel wristbands left, only to find a sign saying that any remaining bands would be handed out near the Galaxy stage on the top floor. This made very little sense to me logistically, and I remarked to the family at the time they could have placed this sign in the main lobby, to keep people from walking all the way down to Hall E. What’s more, after we made the trip up to top floor, we found that not only were there no remaining bands, but that no one there even knew what we were talking about. A SWCO volunteer tried to get info, but no luck. I was again surprised by this lack of organization.
Summary
Celebration Orlando overall was a very positive and memorable experience for our family, and we are very grateful to have attended. The negatives can’t be denied, but we’ve found that these often fade from memory in time, leaving us with the positive flavors of the event.
The major change for us versus our Anaheim experience is that we leave this Celebration remembering the fan events instead of the panels, most of which we had to miss this time around. We feel as if we left SWCO with new extended family members, and that is well worth the price of admission. The Star Wars community is growing, and that is a very good thing. We’re grateful for our small place in it, and for events like this that bring us together.
Celebration Orlando overall was a very positive and memorable experience for our family, and we are very grateful to have attended. The negatives can’t be denied, but we’ve found that these often fade from memory in time, leaving us with the positive flavors of the event.
The major change for us versus our Anaheim experience is that we leave this Celebration remembering the fan events instead of the panels, most of which we had to miss this time around. We feel as if we left SWCO with new extended family members, and that is well worth the price of admission. The Star Wars community is growing, and that is a very good thing. We’re grateful for our small place in it, and for events like this that bring us together.